


dead beauty

by untilourapathy (gwendolen_lotte)



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Angst, F/F, Femslash, Grimmauld Place, Introspection, Second War with Voldemort, Self-Doubt
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-21
Updated: 2018-01-21
Packaged: 2019-03-07 17:36:22
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,243
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13439817
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/gwendolen_lotte/pseuds/untilourapathy
Summary: Where Fleur is white noise and Tonks is her colour.





	dead beauty

**Author's Note:**

  * For [FinalSoul](https://archiveofourown.org/users/FinalSoul/gifts).



> Dear FinalSoul, I hope you like it! You are the sweetest and deserve more than I could ever write xx A huge thank you to the lovely Mary for betaing, who really is too kind.

Fleur hears the shower creak as the occupant bathes, listening to the water fall in dribs and drabs. It’s so much like the dreariness and brokenness of Outside – and her insides. But she doesn’t like to think about that. She listens instead, but it’s hardly a choice when you’re trapped in Grimmauld like she is. From where she is hunched over in the corridor, fingers clenched until they bleed, Fleur thinks she can hear Penny Lane playing, submerged under the layers of water, of apathy, of misery. But she doesn’t quite care anymore; it’s not as though anyone would listen to her, even if she did have something to say.

For all she does is listen nowadays; all she does is hear. Everything she has known has been chipped away by the forsaken, quiet anger of raw pain. The war is nothing but hearsay by now, her function as the lookout somehow more important – yet less, as her life becomes a series of white noise. She is nothing more than Potterwatch, droning on in the background as Shacklebolt’s announcements leak life from the Order, she is comprised of nothing but the black letters of the Quibbler’s whisperings, she is only the teller of stories of another death, death, death.

They have to be stories - at least in her mind. If she cannot let those who died live on in myth, how else are they to be remembered? She knows that for herself, she will be but another casualty, another number, another story. Anotheranotheranother, she thinks, tracing the letters on her gaunt stomach. A forgotten name on a scrap of parchment, lost to the belly of the archives forever – that demon that won’t stop eating, History as that growing monster. She feels History chasing her, in tandem with their friend Death. When she is at her happiest, she can almost smell the rancour of Death’s breath, forever reminding her: _this is only temporary_. She doesn’t think she’s ready for that yet, but there is so little these days. So little for everyone, so little for herself. And if she tells these stories, she can almost believe that someone will do the same for her, when it is her time.

She feels inconsequential herself, little and small, swallowed by all that white noise. The white noise of her panic, blurring her mind into one big mess, the white noise of Ronald’s tears and Harry’s cries and Hermione’s choked sighs. She digs her nails into her wasted thigh as she tries to not remember – the sound of the parchment scratching across the dining table as her latest assignment is pushed towards her, the feel of her heart in her throat, every time she receives a letter from home, watching out for those four letters. D-e-a-d, those four letters. The panic that jolts through her veins, threatening to burst out of her, every time Tonks is sent away, the pain as she has to edge away discreetly from Tonks’ casual palm to her knee, unsure of what she’d do if they were left alone.

But amidst all of this - all of this desolation and trauma and dead beauty - all she really can help but do is to keep listening and keep listening and keep listening, fighting her way through the backlash to hear something, anything. In listening, she is reminded she is not alone. She knows Tonks fears, too - that she too is broken, that she won’t live long enough for herself to heal. Because her greatest fear is to become nothing – not even a story, a myth told to the survivors, their children, their grandchildren. She is more than that, she knows. But a myth is all she can hope to be. Deep in the night, deep deep deep, where her fears come alive and paint the ceiling bright, she believes she already is nothing. If she doesn’t listen, who is she, anymore? French, Champion, Veela. But that isn’t who she is, that was what she _was_. And everything she was? No longer important. Nothing is important anymore, not when you have History’s mire over one shoulder and the bleakness of Death’s waiting lips to the other. What was is not of consequence to the biting jaws of History, she knows, sharpened by the bones of those who came before Fleur ( _Emmeline, Emmeline, Emmeline, her brain remembers_ ), ready to swallow her whole and spit her out again, straight into the waiting gullet of Death.

She is now only what she is, and that she does not know. She feels like she is nothing, like she is that white noise she is enveloped by every single day – ignored, to be forgotten, tuned out. A broken, beautiful sound.

Penny Lane stops on its fifth loop. Fleur winces at the change. Tonks opens the shower door with a clunk, disturbing Fleur’s flurry of white noise, that of her existence and her thoughts and her surroundings. Tonks is wet and red, face puffy and blotchy from the warmth of the water, as the Grimmauld showers had decided to cooperate that day. Fleur has never been so glad to see someone else.

Tonks looks at her expectantly, waiting for her to say something as she stands there, shivering in her too-small towel. Fleur pauses to breathe. She knows she is clever, courageous, capable. She sees that in the mirror every morning, every evening. But that is easy to forget, when no one else does. And here Tonks is, waiting for her to say something. Believing in her. The funny Tonks, the beautiful Tonks, the loud Tonks, colours piercing and uneven and just for her. Listening to her. She almost can’t quite believe it. Tonks, listening to what is left of her.

Tonks, she thinks, is not a name to be forgotten, committed to the archives on a scrap of torn parchment, named misspelled. Tonks is a name she’d write over and over and over again, a name she’d scrawl onto her shrunken heart, the beating of her blood to form the arches and curves of her name. Tonks, her heart would echo, with every pump. Fleur can’t let her be consigned to history, she thinks desperately, she can’t let Tonks be forgotten like that. She’s worth too much, far too much, far far far far too much. How can a single line, number, word, sum up how she is Fleur’s whole world?

Maybe, Fleur thinks, heart beating through her ears, instead of her fears painting her nights bright, she can let herself have Tonks. Maybe Tonks could be her colour.

She looks up into Tonks’ eyes from where she is huddled small on the floor. She doesn’t see the usual expression there. Not the condescension, the lust, the jealousy – just care. Fleur has done enough waiting, she thinks. Things are clearer when the world is dead. She pauses to stand up, reaching out for Tonks. Fleur watches her own hand tremble as she lets it hover above Tonks’ bitten, purple fingernails, her six festival bracelets, one for each of her heartbreaks she’s told Fleur about, her warm, wet hand.

Tonks reminds her to breathe. Tonks reminds her that she’s worth something. That’s enough, Fleur thinks. Enough to say yes. She takes a breath and takes Tonks’ wrist, letting a part of herself go with that. Fleur wonders if she would regret this. And even if she did, whether she’d care. For they would be something, together. More than a puzzle, incomplete.


End file.
